Electronic devices, such as portable media players, cellular phones, personal digital assists (PDAs), and the like, are prevalent in today's marketplace, as are the peripheral electronic devices that support their use, such as docking stations and the like. As competition in the personal electronics marketplace becomes ever more heated, consumers have become more demanding in terms of both the functionality and use of such devices.
Traditionally, digital audio books could have been considered a niche application. Audio books may be increasingly used as storage capacities of media players or portable media device increase and become larger. Furthermore, improving compression methods, like MPEG-standards, can make it more convenient to store lengthy audio books result requiring less storage capacity. Moreover, the prevalence of the distribution of content or other media assets via the Internet hot spots, and other electronic retailers and broadband capabilities can make it easier to obtain content or other media assets, such as audio books.
Navigating lengthy content, such as an audio book, can be necessary, e.g., when the user wants to find a given position within the content. For example, the user may desire to find a particular point or location where he/she stopped listening to the last time. Additionally, an audio book may not be intended to be consumed in sequence, e.g., like a reference book. However, audio books may be stored sequentially, e.g., separated into tracks like digital music, rather than into chapters and pages of traditional paper media.
Accordingly, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for solving some of the problems discussed above. Additionally, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for reducing some of the drawbacks discussed above.